‘Dogen was obviously deeply moved by the concreteness of transmission documents, which put into form something as vague as satori. He realized that at the heart of transmission documents lay the lifeforce of all the Buddhas of the past and the present. And that to inherit this lineage of the Buddha ancestors and to furthermore transmit it to his own disciples was the way of realization. This interest in transmission documents had an enormous influence on Dogen’s Zen in that there was a strong emphasis on having a “true” teacher from which to inherit the Dharma which had been handed down from the time of Shakyamuni. As Dogen states in the “Eihei Shoso Gakudo Yojinshu”, “Unless you have a true teacher, it is better not to study.” Thus from ancient times, widely visiting true teachers has been an important task for the student to make both the teacher and the student a greater Zen or religious person.’ (To Transmit Dogen Zenji’s Dharma)
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